Any families with one genetic child and one donor sibling?

[Memacha]

hello, we’ve had 4 unsuccessful embryo transfers since having my son who was conceived with ivf on the third transfer. Clinic seems to be indicating egg quality as the issue. Just wondering if anyone has experience of having two children conceived in different ways? Wondering if you’d feel differently towards the genetically related child vs donor conceived or any other complexities to be aware of? Thanks

[Kitkat10]

hi, I had 3 failed transfer after my son, and moved to DE, now 34 weeks pregnant and I feel just as bonded and excited about this baby as I did with my genetic son.

I don’t know yet how I’ll feel when the baby arrives and I’d be really interested to hear people’s stories whose babies are already here. I don’t expect to feel any differently and I can’t wait to meet this baby but I guess I won’t really know the answer until she’s here.

It was a hard decision to move to DE but I feel absolutely at peace with it now and I don’t really think much about the genetics, other than to hope I gave this baby the best chance of having a happy and healthy life.

My son is conceived via donor sperm as my partner is infertile plus genetic kidney disease so I feel like we’ve already experienced donor conception and for both of us, we wouldn’t change anything about our little boy.

I joined the donor conception network and I have joined their zoom discussions which I found very helpful. I hope to raise my children as siblings who feel close in a close and supportive and loving home, but I admit I do think about the future and wonder about how the children might feel about their conception. However I also tell myself that families come in all shapes and sizes and all I can do is my best to make my children feel loved and secure x

[Memacha in reply to Kitkat10]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and congratulations! Sounds like your kids are very lucky to have you as their mum 😊 How did you make the decision to switch to DE if you don’t mind me asking?

[Kitkat10 in reply to Memacha]

I had 3 further transfers of OE collected at 42 which made ‘good quality blastocysts’ but 2 failed and 1 was a mmc.

I had 2 straws of donor sperm left from when my son was conceived so I didn’t want to risk losing any genetic connection between siblings.

I mentioned DE to the consultant and he was very confident that was the best path for me as I was turning 43. Yes I could have carried on for another few cycles of OE but I really did not have the resilience. In honesty I wanted this IVF period over and to move forward with (hopefully) 2 children, and for me, genetics aren’t that important.

I have full genetic siblings who I am not close to and none of us are alike. My family are not close (apart from me and my dad) so I decided that really, what do genetics mean? I had 2 sessions of counselling and it took me about 3 months to come to terms with loss of my OE. But in reality, everything around conception and babies and pregnancy can be so unpredictable anyway that I felt that I could make peace with DE and I know that this baby is mine and I’ll love her unconditionally like I do my son.

[RainbowSeeker83]

I have a similar situation, one genetic son who was conceived naturally at 36, now at 40 I have had 2 miscarriages and 3 egg retrievals with all abnormal embryos (nothing to transfer). The clinic tells me the problem is most likely my eggs now having high aneuploidy due to age and of course this would be resolved by donor eggs. I have thought long and hard, DE would in one way be a beautiful solution maybe I could finally leave the nightmare of miscarriages / failed ivf behind and move forward with my two children knowing that I would absolutely love and cherish the new baby regardless of no genetic relation however what has stopped me is the fear/belief that very little consideration us given to how Donor conceived adults adjust to the fact that (in the case of an anonymous donor which is more usual) they do not know half of their identity. I have looked into many forums of donor conceived adults and it is clear that generally speaking they suffer a lot of trauma feeling that they do not know who they really are or if they have siblings out there, that they will hurt their non-genetic mom's by asking questions which are buried instead,feeling like the fertility industry treats them like products not people, wondering about their genetic moms reasons for selling her eggs etc. Certainly it's much worse when their origins are concealed but I think the same questions and worries arise eventually even if the donor conceived child knows from birth when they come to the time in their life where they are figuring out their individual identity (early adulthood). I know there has been one report on children conceived via donor eggs who know from birth indicating that they are well adjusted but I think that's too early to tell- most likely these problems emerge later in the late teens early 20s I think.

So in short I've come to the conclusion that donor eggs would be a "solution" for me but only with the cost that it would pass down trauma to the baby (and ultimately adult) conceived and I don't think that would be fair. I think it will also only defer a major trauma for the child and i to deal with in about 20 years. I also fully believe fertility clinics don't care about this aspect and the perspective of donor conceived children when they grow up is not given enough consideration.

I know this post will probably offend some and hobestly that is not my intention. We don't have a "right" to have children, I so despatched want to have another baby and to give my son a sibling and I know there would be so much joy in it for all of us (including the child conceived) however only the DE conceived child will have to suffer the trauma of donor conception and they don't have a voice at all in the decision - from what I read in the donor conceived person forums it is a significant trauma and I don't want to inflict it to "cure" my own pain.

[neonpg in reply to RainbowSeeker83]

I just wanted to jump in and thank you for sharing this perspective. I forget it's only been about 18 years since ID release donation became mandatory in the UK. I'm in a same-sex relationship so I had no choice but to use donor sperm, however we only got one session of implications counselling from our first clinic. I really think clinics have a duty of care to the donor-conceived children to be more vigorous about the whole process.

I'm sorry you had to make such a tough decision but I'm glad you've got your son.